Chapter 2

"This is boring. I'm done. Let's all head back to my place."

Not once did Xavier look my way.

Everyone else looked at me like I was the clown of the night.

"Lauren, everyone came out tonight to celebrate your birthday, so cleaning up and settling the bill are on you. I'll take everyone home first. Once you've handled it, grab a cab and come back."

As he spoke, Xavier smoothly took the coat and phone Frances handed him.

"Thanks for the trouble, Lauren. We'll be waiting for you at home."

The smugness at the corner of Frances's mouth made it sound like the place was hers.

Then again, over all these years, Frances had crashed at our home more times than I could count, eaten the breakfasts he made, slept under his blankets, worn his slippers.

She'd never needed my permission for any of it.

The others drifted out one by one, until it was just me, staring at the wreckage across the table.

The Happy Birthday on the wall looked so glaring now.

I still remembered my first birthday with him, the night Xavier confessed to me.

He'd secretly rounded up my two or three closest friends to celebrate, and he'd said that every birthday from then on, he'd be there.

He'd changed too much.

Five years ago, when I caught a cold, he'd thrown on a thin jacket in the dead of winter and spent his last hundred dollars on a cab across half the city just to bring me medicine.

When I had the mastectomy for breast cancer, he'd dug up story after story of women who'd been through it to comfort me, and he'd told me he'd love me no matter what.

In the middle of building his startup, pulling all-nighter after all-nighter, he'd carve out a sliver of his rest to make me breakfast, boil water for my footbath, dry my hair...

It hurt me to watch how much he gave, so I quietly reached out to my parents for the funding that got his startup off the ground.

But all of it came to an abrupt end when Frances came back from two years of studying abroad, and our life stopped being just the two of us.

I knew that even during those two years when it was only him and me, the two of them had still texted every single day.

Back then he told me it was purely a friendship, and he hoped I'd understand. So I did. I let it go.

By the third year, he was late for everything, addicted to it, always with a thousand reasons.

Like the heavy rain, so he had to drive Frances home.

Like Frances moving apartments, so he had to go help.

Like Frances getting laid off, so he had to go drink with her.

He always said she was a good buddy, that loyalty meant standing by her. But that loyalty he kept talking about was never once spent on me.

By the time I got back, two hours had passed. Everyone else was gone. Only Frances was still there.

She was still in Xavier's shirt and slippers.

"Why so slow? You did that on purpose, didn't you."

I didn't have much feeling left in me. I just hung my rain-soaked coat over the back of a chair.

"It was raining."

Frances stood up.

"I'll head out for tonight, then. Xavier, go make it up to Lauren."

Xavier's brow creased slightly.

"It's so late, it isn't safe for you to go home alone. Let me drive you."

Frances waved him off, playing at breezy and carefree.

"Drive me where? I'm not that delicate. I'm keeping the clothes, by the way."

As Frances passed me on her way out, the smugness at her mouth was impossible to hide.

The moment the room went quiet again, Xavier let out a long breath.

"Lauren, can you stop getting jealous over nothing? I don't want to say anything harsh to you, but the scene you made tonight puts me in a real bind. Do you know how embarrassing that is?"

Xavier rubbed the space between his brows, looking exhausted.

"Fine."

I won't get jealous over nothing anymore. I'd done it for almost five years. I was tired.

I quietly cleaned up and washed, then lay down in bed without a word.

I don't know how long it was before Xavier lay down behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist.

"All right, stop sulking. Don't you have that photo shoot tomorrow? Be good, tomorrow we'll..."

Before he could finish, a message alert cut him off.